Hence, NWEP, WESTCO, SWEP, NECO, and NEMA came together to form UEP as the first national association of egg farmers on October 19, 1968.
In June 1982, in collaboration with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), UEP developed a set of animal welfare guidelines and published them in a pamphlet entitled “Recommended Guidelines of Husbandry Practices for Humane Handling.”[8] The following year, UEP returned to their primary objectives by setting up a subsidiary organization for companies that break and further process eggs, known as United Egg Association Further Processors (UEAFP).
[9] For the rest of this decade, UEP focused primarily on managing its many subsidiaries, dealing with consumer health concerns,[10][11][12][13][14][15] and attempting to stabilize the American egg market.
A spokesperson for the UEP was asked to comment by the Associated Press after the animal rights group Mercy for Animals sent letters of protest to the fifty largest grocers in the US demanding they include a label on egg cartons that says, "Warning: Male chicks are ground-up alive by the egg industry."
[16] To coincide with the letter campaign, Mercy For Animals released a video showing male chicks being killed on the production line of an Iowa hatchery by being fed, alive, into a grinder.